The mesothelioma treatment method that is chosen will depend on how advanced the disease is and on the patient’s overall physical health and personal preferences. Standard treatment options include surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy. Sometimes, these treatments are combined.
Surgery is an important method of controlling the course of mesothelioma. It may also be combined with chemotherapy, radiation, and other therapies. The doctor may remove part of the lining of the chest or abdomen and some of the tissue around it. In more advanced cases, a doctor may have to remove one of the patient’s lungs, part of the diaphragm or the pericardium.
Radiation therapy, or radiotherapy, involves the use of high-energy rays to kill cancer cells and shrink tumours. It works by destroying the cancer cells in the treated area. The radiation may come from a machine (external radiation) or from putting materials that produce radiation through thin plastic tubes into the area where the cancer cells are found (internal radiation therapy).
Chemotherapy is a traditional mesothelioma treatment that uses anticancer (cytotoxic) medicines, drugs and chemicals to attempt to kill cancerous cells. These chemotherapeutic agents can be ingested in pill form or they can be injected by needle into a vein or muscle. Chemotherapeutic agents include doxorubicin, cisplatin, methotrexate and various drug combinations.
Chemotherapy drugs kill cancer cells but also damage some normal cells. Therefore, your doctor will pay careful attention to avoiding or minimizing side effects, which depend on the specific drugs, the amount taken, and the length of treatment.
In addition to traditional treatments, new mesothelioma cancer treatments are continually being tested through medical research studies. These treatments are called clinical trials and they help researchers determine whether new treatments are safe and effective for general use, while giving patients with few treatment options an opportunity to try new treatments.
Because of mesothelioma’s great latency period, treating mesothelioma is difficult, but there is hope in recent research and clinical trials. Current medical treatment options include chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery, and most patients choose to undergo a combination of these processes in order to increase their life expectancy. But survivors of mesothelioma have shown that treatment goes beyond hospitals, and that prognosis can be better for patients through healthy dieting, regular exercise and a variety of alternative therapies. Additionally, experimental treatments are available to individual patients depending on their stage progression.
